witch hunting, india, globalization

7/27/2019 Witch Hunting, India, Globalization

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With hunting and the Power Game

Dr. Saurav Sengupta, Assistant

Professor, Dept of English,

Damdama College

Pranjit Kalita, Assistant

Professor, Dept of Economics

Pub Bongsor College, Pacharia

Witch hunting has gained momentum in Assam recently. The practice is common in districts

such as Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baska, Sonitpur, Udalguri, Tinsukia, Dhemaji etc.The

Times of India in its May 9, 2011 edition noted how an elderly married couple was killed by

locals in Hadunguri village in the Majbat area in Assam's Udalguri district. Though the police

arrested about fourteen people in this connection, those arrested showed no signs of remorse.

Instead, they kept telling the police that those killed were spreading disease through the practice

of magic. Around 6 people were also killed in Kokrajhar after they were branded as witches.

Five among these were woman. The additional superintendent of police, Satyajit Nath explained

that such killings were common in border areas where healthcare facilities are minimal and

villagers either resort to quack for quick relief or brand a helpless woman as witch out ofsuspicion. Hadunguri, where the married couple was killed is located near Arunachal Pradesh,

while the killings in Kokrajhar district on April 2011 took place in villages near the international

border with Bhutan. As recently as August 2013, there have been reports of the lynching of three

persons on suspicion of being witches by their fellow villages. In this case, the twelve accused

belonged to the family of the victims.

Brian A Pavlac in his discussion on the historical causes behind witch hunting in the west

explains that in most cases, the operating logic had to do with a fear of a counter narrative thatcould systematically dislodge the power center of Christian faith-the Vatican and more locally

with a decentralized power structure that may prove menacing if uncontrolled in the long run.

The critic also gives a second explanation. He says that in Europe, the political elites often

reiterated the claims of their religious counterparts in branding the marginal groups as witches

because it suited their interests. They never stopped the hunts but set the wheels of justice


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rolling to crush the witches (Witch Hunting 5). Significantly, fear of witches was also present in

the Roman Empire (509 BC to AD 476). Secret cults then attempted to communicate with the

gods for fertility to lands and high productivity. Practices included making sacrifices using

blood. But, official recognition to such cults was selective. Not all sects could be allowed to

meddle with state endorsed information. Emperors, in particular, say Pavlac were concerned

about the time of their deaths and did not want any erring religious sect disrupt a set of divine

order.

Christianity was suspected too and Jesus was branded and killed for spreading falsehoods.

Ironically, it is the same Christianity that was responsible in rooting out many indigenous

religions. Max Dashu notes a patriarchal bias in such hunts with priests advising Charles the

Bald and Alfred the Great. But, he also observes the role of diabolism and the fact that many of

those targeted by repressive regimes were forced to call themselves devils under torture. Dashu

also notes that:

In the Italian trials of the 1300s, those who were hunted said that they

worshipped the goddess Diana, wise Sibillia, or the lady of the good

game. A weaver-diviner tried at Mantua in 1489 said that this mistress of

the game had appeared to show him the properties of herbs and the

nature of animals (Ginsberg). Upto the 1530s, accused witches told

inquisitors at Modena that they worshipped not the devil but Diana. A

Brescian trial of the same period refers to the folk goddess as Befana.

The Renaissance recorded many witch hunts. Women were hunted by hard headed misogynists

for demanding equal rights. Colonialists, ignorant of many indigenous religious practices or

causes thereof decried their rightful validity, labeling them false or injurious to Christianity.

Dominated populations had to be marked as superstitious to assort to the colonizer a moral right

to rule. Edward Said explains this tendency as a trope of power, the power to control as a

necessary imperative. Krista Hunt observes with concern the entangling of neo-imperialism with

a customary rhetoric for woman rights which in reality masks the true intention of capital which

is to push for a regime of control and surveillance to control markets in all countries. Hunt says:


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As such, this redeployment of womens issues by the Bush administration is

a significant attempt to threaten womens rights.

One has to turn to Foucaults idea of the discursive field to analyze and point to the ways how

certain discourses claim greater legitimacy over other marginalities. The Bush administration of

the idea of justice and the rights of woman which allowed it to target Afganistan is now seriously

contended by woman activists there. In his first state of the Union address, after the September

11 attacks, Bush endorsed his attack on Iraq and other uncivilized Muslim nations as promoting

human values. His arguments quickly came down to free trade, free markets and free societies

even if that meant transforming a self-centered nation into a self-sacrificing global leader

(Hunt Discipline and Punishment in Global Politics 44). In his directions to the OIWI(office of

International Woman Issues, United States Department) he suggested that womans financial

empowerment and their participation in all decision making should top the list of priorities. Such

issues as violence against women, trafficking in women and girls, female genital mutilation, and

Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) were

considered secondary and unrelated. By virtue of this focus, says Hunt Bushs pro-women

foreign policy agenda remained fundamentally tied to the countries, region, and issues targeted

by the war on terror (Discipline and Punishment 45). It is no surprise then that critics of war and

Bushs neo-liberal policy term his violence against all barbarians as an attempt to turn them in

the image of America (Bacchetta 2001; Ali 2002; Chomsky 2002; Talbot 2003). Bush contends

his critics when his says that his aim is just democracy and not the imposition of culturally

specific values. In his address to the UN before and after his attack on Iraq 2003, he chastised the

institution itself for failing to back it in its democratic mission concluding finally that he

remained seriously committed to the UNs charter for human rights even in the face of

opposition. So, while the rights of woman concerned him and his nation, he did not believe in

securing woman more than securing the civilized worldby replacing terrorist regimes with

democratic, U.S.-friendly governments committed to promoting neoliberal economic

restructuring. Hence, there is a need to demolish traditional structures, authoritarian regimes and

closed economic zones with replacements offered by technologically advanced nations as cusp of

liberal ideas.


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The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund says as much when it tracks all barbaric

regimes to lack of contact with modern ideas and markets which simplified translates to no

government interference, a self-financing public sector open to market manipulation and private

investments. This thrust on global competitiveness, a downsizing of government mechanisms,

allowing only private players in responsibility of welfare leaves all marginal groups wrongly

affected. Gayatri Spivak summarizes the position of such groups the poorest in the South are at

the bottom of a society where a welfare structure cannot emerge because of globalized

exploitation (Spivak 1996). Today, it is no news that Global Financial Corporations, Fortune

500 companies that include Gateway, Daimler, Time Warner, Smith Richardson, have donated

money, equipment, and services to womens projects in exchange, to be sure, for lucrative

reconstruction contracts (OIWI 2003, 8)(qtd. Hunt 49). Woman are expected lead to such strong

growth plans by making traditional clothes, weaving carpets, running bakeries that are highly

feminized and nominal, depending on the trickle-down effect(OIWI 2003, 16). Afgan war rugs

or carpets, defined as folk art allow such woman to express their feelings about the war and

political sentiment about radical regimes in their country. One such rag for example shows

American and British war planes with the words root out terrorism with the help of America

and Britain in broken English. Such examples only show how neo-liberal policies are meant to

discipline the financially poor segments of the population to produce exotic goods for

consumption worldwide. Zillah Eisenstein argues, global capital thrives because of a racial-

patriarchal transnational sexual division of labour that disproportionately locates women and

girls, especially those of color, in low-wage assembly and information jobs and in sexual ghettos

elsewhere in the market. Next in target is to allow such woman to consume goods produced by

such makers as LOreal and Revlon, to join the sales line as entrepreneurs to support their family

and the national economy. The proper words here are womans issues and not womans

empowerment. Interestingly, the US holds the line on patriarchal family values and sees much

of the logic of Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Woman

(CEDAW) as too radical because it allows reproductive rights. So, in order for targeted nations

to be on good terms with the US, it is not necessary to supplement male chauvinism with woman

empowerment but to allow transparency in discourse between the genders to allow the fairer sex

a way into the global market and marketing of women (Eisenstein 1996, 140)and so womans

rights are only relative.


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Sima Samar, the woman affairs minister in Hamid Karzais minister discovered this relative

importance of her office when she was allowed no funds or equipment and criticized when she

demanded aborting rights for woman, a demand she backtracked and erased with the word

equality. Samars replacement Habiba Sorabi argued for woman rights without anyway crossing

the dictates of Islam. Malalai Joya, another minister in the cabinet had the guts to call the Afghan

Parliament worse than a stable (The Daily Telegraph 2007) for which reason she was expelled

from the legislative body and even fellow MPs had [thrown] water at me, threatened me with

death, and one of them shouted, Take her out and rape her ... Then they turned off my

microphone (Daily Telegraph 2007).

So, why does the US not do anything to curb home grown goons? Hunt explains that the reason

is that it needs such hooligans to fight the Taliban and minimize its casualties while it knows that

one such group, the Northern Alliance was notorious for blatant violation of woman rights before

the Taliban regime. Unfortunately, in the Indian context, one finds the same blatant violation of

human rights, rights of subaltern groups, either in the name of globalizing goods or capital or for

better effectiveness of managing public resources, which stands to lose its value if not

immediately tugged to private capital. While India must keep its commitment to the IMF and the

World Bank, millions of people are being dispossessed, their rights to home and resources

snubbed for a nationalistic mission called prosperity. And when just ignoring the meddling

masses dont help matters, the law of the land can be enforced. Such a law Arundhati Roy

claims is benignly termed structural adjustment and that means no worker rights or enforcing

traditional inequalities so that the victim is bewildered (Howard Zinn A Peoples History of

the United States). So, when a court of law, orders demolition of thousands of illegal business

premises as in the case of the CJI Y.K. Sabharwal, or that of Nangla Maachi, which left million

of poor laborers homeless in the scorching summer sun (Arundhati Ray, Listening to

Grasshoppers 122), a way was cleared for air-conditioned city malls, deluxe flats for the super

rich and less meddlesome shanties that are a blot on the city space.

This paper thus argues that all human rights violation, justified either in the name of law, or

human rights, or democracy or liberal intervention of capital are attempts to clear the way for a

select few at the cost of many others. Witch hunting cannot be seen in isolation. It is no pagan


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cult or just a problem of remote societies but operative of a power discourse, where all

challenges to inequality should be cut short before they ripe to challenge authority. It is

important also to understand that with Indias lop-sided developmental policies, infrastructural

investments are only visible and executed in terms of their need to help get the raw materials like

coal, oil, natural gas etc carried away. Recently, the government of India announced an

ambitious plan to develop highways in the north-east at some staggering crores. That would

allow finished goods into the thriving market here while its silk, muga, pat; petrol, diseal, and

tea are at the mercy of middlemen, financial brokers and objective World Bank managers who

see no reason for these to stay here. But, Indias caste hierarchy with financial clout reserved for

the upper castes-Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaidyas and the male as a class did for Hindu society

what imperialism did to all the blacks and browns- make inequality a part of an untraceable birth

defect explained by Manu as Karma or by Mill, Orwell, Kipling etc- the incorrigible claim of the

white man to rule over the passionate, erotic, subhuman people of color-wild and unruly. That

made the rule of law, and then of force extremely useful and relevant. It made civilization- neo-

colonialism an exercise in diplomacy. Democracy was to be fulfilled in consumerism. And while

the common people suffered, top bosses in the higher echelons of government and policy making

were soon expecting things to be the way they are in America or Europe. It is not without

reasons that judges deciding on the Sardar Sarovar Dam over Narmada asked the government

lawyers if adivasi children in the resettlement colonies would have parks to play (Arundhati Roy,

The Algebra of Infinite Justice 10 ). It is unfortunate that the Indian national movement or the

Congress leaders did not do much to integrate the lowdown orders into the mainstream. As a

result, the power relations between them and those at the bottom continue to stay the way they

had in pre-colonial and colonial times. Hence, the relations of labor to profit remain inversely

proportional. The laborers remain tied to their occupation without any hope of making things

better. In most tea plantations for example studied by Soma Choudhuri in Jalpaiguri, she

discovered the workers poor and impoverished, without such basic amenities a drinking water or

medicine and isolated from the outside world. Any possibility of protest turned inconsequential

and dangerous with the management keeping an army of the North Bengal Mounted Rifles ready

in case of any unrest. Choudhuri explains:


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Caught between noncapitalist morality and capitalistic discipline, some

factory women alternate between states of self-control and spirit possession,

and the spirit possession is a reflection of the loss of autonomy and

humanity inherent in production work (Choudhuri 9).

It has to be mentioned here that the term adivasi has and did have multiple subjective

connotations. They were at once wild (janglijatis), undesirable, with the men and their

masculinities as ineffective. The women were taken to be highly sexualized, given to temptations

etc. Over the years, adivasi has come to denote a better category of description because

considered less offensive against the term (janglijati) but ideas of them being outside the caste

system and so offensive to it has remained permanent with most caste Indians. So, as the nation

made a transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, the power relations between the

adivasi and the larger population was affected by identifying scapegoats. But, even within the

same worker population, witch accusation allowed for control of lives within the exploitative

system of an industrial setup (Choudhuri 10).

There is so much pressure and struggle in our daily lives. One has to do

somethingkill something so that we feel that momentarily we have

some power over our lives. It perhaps gives the community some respite.

Momentarily of course, till the harassment by the police and outsiders start.

Hospitals, medicines, doctors are something we do not have here. So at

work we have the troubles over wages and treatment. And at home it is the

old story of ailments and deaths

A woman in a factory setup is doubly marginalized first by male supervisors and onlookers and

then by her own male counterpart. It is a commonplace to especially see her compliant, a fact

that is ensured by criticizing her conduct and then her dresses and this requires a civilizing

mission. So, while she is admittedly a better worker because she participates in all requirements

of labor, she cannot still make her decisions or be part of the decision making process in her

family and outside because as woman her entry to such male domains as the gaon panchayat are


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limited. Partha Chatterjee calls this a double bind situation where woman are simultaneously

fetishized and pragmatically devalued (2001, 6), leaving them susceptible and the sexual targets

of supervisors, contractors, traders and their managers (Choudhuri 12). This vulnerability is

increased at moments of economic crisis. Choudhuri found them caught in a web of conspiracy,

sometimes triggered by their male members who use rumor and gossip(Choudhuri 12) to

manipulate the community and then direct their accusations against the erring woman. It is also

possible that power groups in the vicinity use such accusation to further isolate the laborers from

the greater society outside. It is also true that in all segments of the population, there is a strong

belief in good and bad spiritual powers. Mostly, those who cannot afford the extraordinary

medical expenses today depend on quacks for relief. Such village doctors are believed to possess

some extraordinary power like conversing directly with an outside spirit universe. However

exotic this may sound, such beliefs are again heightened by images and memories of trance like

states manipulated by such quack. Only when they fail, they resort to blasphemous accusations

like the practice of criminal demonology by some member of the community as a last ditch effort

to keep flow of their clientele. At times, such accusations cut across communities, class and

religious identities. A report by Partners of Law in development says that most cases of hunting

have an economic angle with victims being woman or widows having land or property. At times,

exceptional looking woman are targeted. In some cases when poor woman take to educating their

children, they are believed to be witches. The probable cause says the report points to jealousy of

the extended family of the victim. Jahnabi Gogoi Nath links the killing of old woman as witches

in Assam to their medicinal knowledge, in particular those related to contraception and abortion.

It is possible says the scholar that the branding of such woman as withes is an effort by men to

gain control of the patrilineal line by effecting a loss of control in their wives of child bearing

capacities (Witchcraft and Witch hunting in Assam). Nath draws upon the empirical study of

Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar, and Yo Xaiogang whose investigations about the practice of witch

hunting in a Santhal community which has this to say:

While womens participation in rituals became evil, men alone could be the

witch finders. The ojas, deoras and the jan-gurus perform this function with

a combination of divining and knowledge in the contradictions existing in


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the village. Our discussions with the witch finders in the Maraghada region

of Ranchi and with the Santhal women in the Giridhi and other districts

showed that the witch finders through their questions and other means

(investigations by assistants) gathered information from the complainants.

The identification of the witch is then based on the information gathered.

Initially, the names of the witches are not mentioned. The complainants are

left to make their own inferences. All this makes it very easy to identify the

person whom the village (men) want to get rid of as the witch. Usually, the

whole village knows beforehand who the woman is and who is going to be

named a witch. The various tensions in the village and the identity of those

women who are without support are well known.

In most cases The same process of prior identification is alluded to in Choudhuris essay on

categories of witchcraft where she points to a witch hunting case as reported by one of the

witness from the chandmoni tea estate in Jalpaiguri:

It seemed very random the selection of the women but you know that

nothing is random. The names [of witches] that Hariram called out were all

predecided. Sureshs friend, Lakhan had paid an additional five hundred

rupees to the Janguru to call out Sancharis name. Lakhan and Sancharis

husband had a dispute over money. Sancharis husband accused Lakhan of

stealing money from him. So Sanchari accusation was not random. Same

with Atashi, Binshu and Dhanshi. Their accusations were related to disputes

that they had. Manashis accusation however was random. She was an old

woman. Maybe that is why she was selected

It can then be pointed out that money matters are at the heart of many cases of hunting. This

leaves a very pertinent question-the responsibility of the government in taking financial

institutions down to the grassroots and implementing welfare schemes for the public at large.

There is no reason further to ape the west as answer to Indias soc ial problems because the

former have examples of witchcraft also. All laws that call for the empowerment of woman are


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as good as they are implemented. But with a majority of woman being labeled as witches, it is

time for governments to think on priorities. Interestingly, many fundamental accusations of

women witches come from the same gender itself. Conflict arises from the use of kitchen to

garden produce even utensils and other items of daily use. Men are reported about the existence

of witches by their women and the former in turn makes a complaint to the village sarpanch or

headman to decide the problem. It is time that traditional biases against woman are reversed and

they be allowed to study and work as equal citizens, not just remain docile and submissive to

family responsibilities. But, as Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze points out, Indias economy as

much as its relevance to social needs requires restructuring. One of the reasons they point to is

the adaptive submission by the underdogs of society to continuing misery, exploitation and

indignity (An Uncertain Glory). Both highlight the countrys poor spending on education

and also toprivate exploitative medical care. Indias corporate sector is doing well but most of

its profits are spent on expensive acquisitions outside like Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata

Motors. And while the nation still needs highways or news and television channels, it has to be

understood that globalization, dependent on borrowings not just of money but of conditions for

loan has been a major cause in creating greater regional and financial imbalances. Its no help to

the people to just be shown highrises where the nouveau rich can put up. Kathy Le Mons

Walker in her article in the Journal of Peasant Studies October 2008 comparing India and China

says:

witch hunting, india, globalization

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